Being the reviews and ramblings of an incurable narcissist with too much time on his hands.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Review: Cosmopolis

Cosmopolis is a
rare kind of movie, a very difficult to review movie. It’s a movie so surreal,
so strange and offbeat in it’s characters and presentation that at the end I
was surprised it was to be reminded that it wasn’t directed by David Lynch. The
movie as a whole is confusing and dark, a movie that most film goers (and in
particular the lead actor’s fans from Twilight)
will feel alienated by.

So naturally, I loved it to pieces. It’s presentation is
just the perfect kind of surreal and strange to appeal to me and my
sensibilities (I must remind you that I count David Lynch as one of my
inspirations). It’s definitely one of the most surreal movie Cronenberg has
made since Videodrome, but it all
works, into one of my favorite movies of the year thus far. But while I loved
it, I can’t recommend it without reservation, as a lot of people are going to
hate it.

For the record, the plot is about Eric Packer (Robert
Pattinson), a rich ,detached and self-destructive billionaire living in a near-future New
York City, who is traveling across New York to get a haircut. And…that’s more
or less it. There are some lingering plot bits about a currency crisis, a
violent anti-capitalist group and someone planning to kill Eric, but those
mostly hang around the edges.

This is one of the major ways a lot of people are going to
feel alienated by this movie: There’s very little in the way of plot. The vast
majority of the movie consists of Eric meeting with various people, from his
equally detached new wife who refuses to have sex with him, to his doctor who
gives him a checkup right in the limo, and having detached conversations with
them. It feels very cold, and almost didactic, as the characters and their
actions don’t seem to have any connection to human behavior.

The script is probably the strangest thing about it. The
dialogue is rapid, highly technical and veers between philosophy, economics and
in-character dialogue so rapidly that it threatens to give you whiplash. As you
might have guessed from the plot description, there is an essential lack of any
linear narrative or even more than the barest amount of a story.

The acting fits with the movie: Cold and detached. Pattinson
comes close to redeeming his time with the Twilight
franchise in this movie. His natural cold andemotionless affect is exactly what this movie needs and it shows that in
the hands of the right director, he could be a good talent and if nothing else,
he’ll be good at playing villains and psychopaths down the line in his career.
Aside from him, no one gets more than a handful of scenes, but they all do very
well, keeping the movie’s tone consistent, but special mention must go Paul
Giamatti, proving once again he’s good in everything.

None of this would work without Cronenberg at the helm. His direction
is so distant, it’s almost clinical, emphasizing the lack of emotion, but it
also manages to be precise and interesting. The camera holds in one-to-two
person shots for a long time and repeats similar angles, in a way that sounds
boring, but manages to emphasize the characters and the world they live in.

Cosmopolis is not
a movie for everyone. A lot, and I mean a lot, of people are going to hate it.
It’s less a fully formed story than it is an experience, something you immerse
yourself in and think about for days or weeks later. But, if you’ve ever liked
the works of David Lynch, in particular Mullholland
Drive, or some of Cronenberg’s early more surreal work, then you’ll probably
like this one. If nothing else, it’s going to be one of the most divisive
movies of the year, so if any of this sounds like something you want to see,
give it a look. And if it helps, I loved it.

Elessar is a 22 year
old Alaskan born cinephile and he’s probably gonna have to see this a couple
more times before he fully absorbs it.